


une nuit sauvage qu'on voit de la lune

by wylltpenyddraig



Series: je ne te laisserai pas derrière [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Bad Puns, Les Amis de l'ABC Shenanigans, M/M, Marijuana, Multi, honestly it's the gang being themselves with no real drama, may i offer you some softness and love in those trying times ?, québécois!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23742157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wylltpenyddraig/pseuds/wylltpenyddraig
Summary: (or, alternatively titled: Grantaire Finds Some Prime Blackmail Material, and Les Amis Get Intoxicated Patriotically)
Relationships: Combeferre/Courfeyrac (Les Misérables), Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Joly/Bossuet Laigle/Musichetta
Series: je ne te laisserai pas derrière [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710229
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39
Collections: Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition





	une nuit sauvage qu'on voit de la lune

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to thank all the people involved in the Big Bang, it was amazing and a true opportunity to connect with other fandom creators. i am also very grateful for my amazing beta who helped me translate this to english, the lovely Dove, and to siz.klh for giving me hope when there was none. 
> 
> thank you all !
> 
> [can work as a stand-alone.]
> 
> (title from the québécois song "Les amoureux qui s'aiment" by Les Trois Accords.)

The music on the radio was an endless loop of National Holiday classics and Grantaire was looking out at the urban scenery through the window of Enjolras’ electric car. The sun was beating down on them relentlessly and had forced Grantaire to get out his old sunglasses that hadn’t seen the light of day even once during the years they’d spent in his bedside table. 

They had been on their way to Montréal for about 30 minutes now without incident, but they really should have hurried instead of making out in the kitchen between Combeferre’s departure and the drive to go pick up Jehan and Feuilly, because the traffic was quickly getting heavier. Enjolras’ fingers were drumming the current song on the radio against the wheel, his other hand warm on Grantaire’s thigh, and he had frankly ridiculous blue sunglasses perched on his perfect nose. 

“Ugh, Montréal,” sighed Feuilly from the backseat.

“Québec City is so much better,” agreed Grantaire.

“Pft, it’s a city of paper-pushers,” retorted Enjolras, frowning. “Montréal beats Québec hands down.”

“They have the Francofolies and the Plaines d’Abraham,” argued Grantaire, looking at his boyfriend.

“Montréal’s got the Jazz Fest, the Village, the métro, the La Ronde international fireworks, plus there’s the Quartier des Spectacles…”

Grantaire smiled and stopped listening to Enjolras to stare yet again at his beautiful face. His boyfriend half turned, eyes still on the road.

“Are you even listening?”

“You’re so cute when you talk about something you love, namour.”

“Oh my god, _shut up,_ ” said Enjolras, blushing.

Grantaire couldn’t help his laugh, and took the hand on his thigh to kiss it softly, a stupid smile still on his lips. 

“I knew I should have taken the métro in Laval with the others and given my place to someone else,” said Feuilly, rolling his eyes at them. Then he looked out the window at the heavy traffic and grimaced.

“It’s not that Québec City is better, Jo, it’s that Montréal is always like _this_ ,” Jehan said reasonably, gesturing at the cars that surrounded them in every direction.

“Admittedly, there’s always a shitload of people in the métro too, but then—Oh, Baz just texted me. He says that they’re all at your Mom’s already, Jo.” reported Feuilly.

“Good, tell them that we’ll be there in—”

“What?” exclaimed Grantaire, looking to Enjolras in a mounting panic. “We’re going to your mother’s?”

“Jo didn’t tell you?” asked Jehan, their hand frozen in the act of putting an earbud in their ear.

“Oh fuck,” muttered Feuilly, gesturing to Jehan for the other earbud.

“Ange!” Grantaire cried out, dropping Enjolras’ hand and running his own through several days’ worth of stubble. “All you told me was that we were going to Montréal for the Saint-Jean-Baptiste!”

“I mean… we are?”

“Oh my god, I am nowhere near presentable enough to meet your—”

“Minou… I _know_ my mum is going to love you,” said Enjolras, putting more confidence into that one statement than Grantaire had managed to put out over the course of the entire past year. He put his free hand on Grantaire’s shoulder. “We’re just spending the afternoon and sticking around for supper. Then we’re going to the place my father keeps in Montréal.”

Enjolras had already told him that his father and mother had met when his father was an exchange student in Québec and that they had lived in Montréal before his mother had gotten pregnant with him. His parents had parted ways when he was nine, and his father had gone back to Paris, gotten married, and had a daughter, Marianne. Enjolras and his French family weren’t terribly close, but when Enjolras was still in high school, he had spent a part of his summer holidays in the Haute-Loire with them, where his father’s family was from. That was all, though. Enjolras was a mama’s boy. Grantaire feared that if Enjolras’ mother didn’t like him, it would be the end.

“You should’ve told me,” said Grantaire, a bit grumpy. “I almost had a heart attack, you overgrown dumbass. I would have dressed nicer than this if I’d known.”

“I like how you’re dressed today: your shorts show off your ass quite nicely.”

“I know, you told me so this morning,” replied Grantaire, trying and failing to keep a smile off his face.

“Jo, don’t get us into an accident just ’cause you’re too busy making doe eyes at R,” groaned Feuilly, giving Jehan their earbud back.

“I learned to drive in Montréal, I can drive anywhere.” 

“You flip out whenever the roads get too country,” said Jehan, looking out the window at the passing skyscrapers.

“Exactly!” cried Feuilly. “Eyes on the road, Jo, and both hands on the wheel.”

“This is a free country, Feuilly, he can put his hands wherever he wants, even on my—”

“Tabarnak, Grantaire!”

⸺⸺⸺

They showed up at Enjolras’ mother’s place a little later than anticipated. Grantaire was nervous and jittery, unable to make his leg stop bouncing. He wanted so badly for Enjolras’ mother to love him, or at least willingly tolerate him. But Grantaire was a realistic man; he knew, he _knew_ that he wasn’t an ideal son-in-law, what with his cynicism, his chronic incapacity to see a future for himself, and his weird-shaped nose that his brother had broken when he’d had the bright idea of making them slide down the stairs in a laundry basket when they were kids.

He took a deep breath and got out of the car. Jehan took his ukulele from the trunk and Enjolras closed the car door. Grantaire couldn’t help but notice the stereotypical Montréal apartments, and then he saw the park across the street. He laughed, laughed and laughed. This was amazing—he knew exactly where he was.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” He laughed harder at the confused expression on Enjolras’ face. “My boyfriend is a true Frenchman!”

“My mother is Québécoise!”

“Oh, Sunshine, you’re so French, you grew up on the Plateau Mont-Royal. Is it true that you’ve got a secret portal to Paris to get your baguettes?”

Enjolras lunged at him, half-heartedly trying to smother him in his arms to shut him up, and Grantaire let himself wrap his arms around his boyfriend’s waist. His nerves soon came back, and Grantaire hid his face in Enjolras’ shoulder.

They climbed the staircase to Enjolras’ mother’s apartment. The knot in Grantaire’s throat was growing so fast he thought he would choke on it by the time they got to Enjolras’ mother’s porch. Feuilly knocked.

“Come in!” came a feminine voice Grantaire had never heard before.

Feuilly opened the door and stepped in, followed by Jehan and Enjolras, who was practically towing Grantaire forward. They took off their shoes and Grantaire tried to calm down, closing the door behind him. They walked down the hallway to the living–dining room. Through the wall, Grantaire could hear their other friends talking and the murmur of a radio.

The apartment and its eclectic decor were very homey, so very different from the place Grantaire had grown up. He could easily picture Enjolras, so open-minded and kind, growing up in a place like this.

“Jehan, dear! And my handsome Feuilly!” said Mme Enjolras, her arms open, a huge smile on her lips.

She hugged them, planting loud kisses on their foreheads.

Enjolras’ mother was stunning. She had the same blond hair as her son, a scarf keeping it out of her face—it was a look that just screamed “baroque” and pleased the artist in Grantaire greatly—and beautiful eyes. Where Enjolras was serious, his mother seemed more bohemian.

“Oh! You’ve got a new friend, Crevette?” asked his mother, spotting Grantaire behind her son.

Grantaire would have time later to tease his boyfriend with this _magnificent_ nickname, but he was busy trying to not hyperventilate.

“Mom,” said Enjolras, pulling Grantaire forward by their joined hands. “This is R, my boyfriend.”

“A boyfriend! My grown-up Crevette has a boyfriend and he didn’t tell me!”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Madame Enjolras,” said Grantaire, his voice much more calm than the storm-tossed sea of his thoughts.

He was neither prepared, nor shaved, nor dressed properly—what if she decided that she didn’t like him on the spot without even talking to him—

“Oh, R, call me France, please,” said Enjolras’ mother. With a wink, she added: “The only Mme Enjolras you might meet is on the other side of the Atlantic.”

“Can we help with something, Mom?” asked Enjolras, and Grantaire was pathetically grateful for the change of subject. 

“I was preparing the sausages with Musichetta, but if you help her, I’ll start the pasta salad.”

Enjolras turned to Grantaire, raising his eyebrow a bit. Grantaire nodded, glancing for a second at their friends, before following his boyfriend to the kitchen. Jehan had turned off the radio and was improvising on his ukulele, and Courfeyrac was talking with Marius while playing with Combeferre’s hair. Combeferre himself was reading, and Bahorel was showing something on his phone to Cosette, a beer in his hand. Feuilly was laughing at Bossuet’s joke, if Bossuet’s satisfied grin was anything to go by.

Musichetta and Grantaire cut the sausages in thirds, then wrapped the pieces in bacon strips before spearing each resulting roll with a toothpick to hold everything in place. The two of them filled a whole baking dish, sprinkled brown sugar over it, and then put it in the oven. Enjolras was slicing vegetables for the pasta salad and gave Grantaire little kisses on his temple, cheek, or forehead every time he passed by on his way to the trash can.

“Do you know how to play _Ton amour a changé ma vie_ , Jehan?”

“Sacrament, Marius,” said Bahorel, exasperated, and Grantaire heard a body hit the floor.

A chorus of groans and protests rose from the group as Jehan started playing the song and humming the lyrics.

When Enjolras disappeared for a couple of minutes, his mother came up to Grantaire with a kind smile.

“Could you help me with the dishes?” she asked, smile never slipping. “We’ll have less to do after supper.”

Oh God, thought Grantaire, Enjolras’ mother was going to give him the shovel talk. He swallowed with considerable difficulty and nodded, following her to the sink. After a couple minutes of silence interrupted only by the dishes clanging, she started talking.

“You both seem to like each other very much,” she said.

“Yeah, mh. We’ve got a lot in common,” answered Grantaire, nervous, because what are you even supposed to say to that?

“You play hockey too?”

“Me? No, not at all. I didn’t even know how to skate until he showed me. We read almost all the same authors and sometimes we have friendly debates, though.”

Enjolras’ mother looked at him for a long time before breaking into a fresh smile for what seemed to be the gazillionth time today. She finished scrubbing the pan in her hands and gave it to Grantaire to dry.

“Remind me to show you his baby pictures before you go, would you, honey?”

And oh—Enjolras’ mother liked him—that was—amazing, truly amazing. At this thought, Grantaire smiled and felt himself relax a little.

“Of course, France.”

“Minou?” called Enjolras from the living room.

“In the kitchen,” answered Grantaire.

⸺⸺⸺

Joly had made sure that the meat was perfectly cooked, reminding them all that food poisoning was a very serious threat, and Bahorel and Cosette had set the table. Everyone sat down, chatting with their neighbours and filling their plates. 

This St-Jean-Baptiste was very different from the others Grantaire had celebrated: he wasn’t eating in the corner of the living room and half-listening to his cousins talking about boring things, thinking about how badly he wanted to escape out the window and go on the Plaines to see the Grand Spectacle with his friends. He also wasn’t on his way to being very drunk and high as a kite with Louison and Floréal. 

There was food on the table that Grantaire had seen many times at his own family gatherings, like the pasta salad, the sliced baguettes, and the vegetable dip. There was also stuff that he had never seen before in his life: what Cosette called a _boule de poulet_ and the bacon-wrapped sausages.

This, _this_ was infinitely better. It was almost perfect: Grantaire was sitting beside his boyfriend—and the woman who might one day be his mother-in-law, good lord—among their friends. 

“So, how’s med school going?” asked France, directing the question at Joly and Combeferre.

“My internship is going very well,” answered Combeferre, breaking into a huge grin.

“I’m so glad we’re on vacation. It felt like I caught every illness we learned about,” muttered Joly, taking a bite of bacon-wrapped sausage and washing it down with a mouthful of beer. “I was thinking about changing programs and becoming a veterinarian instead.”

“You have all the credits you need to apply?”

“I did Applied Sciences, I’ll be fine. And y’know, since animals are less stressful than humans, it seems like a good alternative.”

“The most important thing is that you both don’t regret it when you hit forty. Ah, Bahorel, honey, when is your bar exam?”

Feuilly and Jehan both had a full-body laugh as Bahorel scowled, making an exasperated noise. Courfeyrac smirked.

“The thing is, France,” said Bahorel, “lawyers are all so stuck up that I can’t stand them anymore. I’m so done that I might just start my own bakery, y’know, ‘cause a DEP would be so much shorter and much more fun than what I have left of law school.”

Feuilly cut in. “Aren’t there enough bakeries back in—”

“None of them would have my secret weapon!” retorted Bahorel, glaring at Feuilly. “ _Jehan_ volunteered to help me if I do start a bakery, and we’ll be fucking awesome, just you wait!”

“Be sure to send me samples,” added France, with a wink.

“She lives for almond croissants,” said Enjolras in a stage whisper, leaning in close to Bahorel.

“Crevette!” France cried out, a surprised laugh curving her mouth.

Grantaire was eating with a little smile, laughing with everyone, basking in the homey and peaceful energy of the evening. When France asked Marius and Cosette how they had met and how Marius had met everyone else, Grantaire was only half-listening, buttering his piece of bread.

“... and we’ve been on a couple of dates and now we’re together,” said Cosette.

“I had met Courfeyrac at the ice rink before,” continued Marius. “I was telling R—we were coworkers—that my grandfather had just disinherited me, and Courf was there, and immediately offered to let me live in his spare room until I could find something else.” 

“Courfeyrac has had a heart of gold since childhood, it doesn’t surprise me,” said France with a gentle smile. “And you, R, how did you meet my son?”

“Oh! Um, actually—we, um—I—” Grantaire struggled for words.

“R worked the late shift at the ice rink,” said Enjolras, and truly, Grantaire loved him so, so much. “Then he saw me for the first time, and choked.” 

( _Damned traitor!_ thought Grantaire, dying inside.)

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” cried Cosette, who didn’t know the story.

“It was truly beautiful,” added Joly over Bossuet’s laugh.

“Oh my god, please stop,” begged Grantaire, burying his face in his hands to hide his blush.

“Everything worked itself out, I take it,” France commented with a soft chuckle. “And what are you studying?”

“I’m working to save money for uni at the moment. I’ve still got a couple of cégep credits to do to get my DEC and then I’ll go to uni for animation.”

“That sounds pretty cool,” said France, taking a sip of her wine. “How many years is that?”

⸺⸺⸺

After everyone—save for Enjolras and Grantaire—had left to catch the métro to the apartment owned by Enjolras’ father, France came back to the living room with a photo album in her hand, and sat on the sofa, gesturing to Grantaire. They only had ten minutes before they needed to hop in the car and join their friends, but Enjolras’ mother seemed confident it was enough time.

“Oh my god,” Grantaire cooed at Enjolras from his place beside France on the couch. “You were so damn cute.”

“That’s from his first birthday,” said France with a doting smile, putting an old photo into Grantaire’s hand.

“Mom, is this really necessary?”

“You still have ten minutes to kill, Crevette.”

Sure, the picture was cliché and predictable, but irresistible nevertheless. Baby Enjolras sat in his highchair, his eternal golden locks framing his icing-covered little face, his happiest smile as blinding then as it was now. What had presumably once been a cupcake was now a massacre of chocolate cake and blue frosting.

Grantaire heard Enjolras let himself fall on the armchair with a heavy sigh. Grantaire lifted his head and winked at his boyfriend before going back to search for more blackmail material.

“Oh, this one was Crevette’s third Christmas,” mentioned France after looking at the back of the picture.

“I know that you don’t like the consumerism of the winter holidays, namour, but I’m sure that Santa didn’t deserve his fate,” chuckled Grantaire.

“Oh no,” said Enjolras in tones of dread. “It’s the picture where I’m pulling at a Santa’s real beard, isn’t it?”

“He was a little rascal when he was even younger than that, too. Several times, I found him in the kitchen, hidden in a cabinet with all the Tupperwares on the floor. He almost got stuck, once.”

“He must’ve been a nightmare when he was a teenager.”

“Mmhm,” France confirmed, her smile widening. “But! There are still plenty of good pictures before we get to his teen years.” 

The next picture was Enjolras at five years old, dressed as a cowboy for Halloween, asleep in the arms of a man whose face wasn’t in the picture—his father, Grantaire guessed. 

“Look at this one, it was when Crevette went to his first real hockey game at the Bell Centre.”

An eight-year-old Enjolras was hugging Youpi, the fluffy bright orange mascot of the Montréal Canadiens, and wearing a Canadiens shirt a bit too large for him. Clearly this encounter had been a dream come true, judging by his boyfriend’s face-splitting smile and starry eyes. 

France passed him another photo without saying a word, and Grantaire burst out laughing. This was _glorious_.

“Oh no, Sunshine, what did you do to your hair?”

“Oh God,” groaned Enjolras, dragging his hands down his face. “I was like 16, give me a break.”

“Apparently, you succumbed to peer pressure,” sniggnered Grantaire.

In the picture, a teenage Enjolras was shooting the camera a black look Grantaire knew well, and his hair—oh, his hair had been sideswept into the style that had skyrocketed to popularity when Justin Bieber released his song _Baby_ . Teenage Enjolras was also hiding a book behind his back, and Grantaire squinted a bit to see that his boyfriend had been reading _The Communist Manifesto_. Grantaire couldn’t help laughing again. 

“We really need to go now. If the others get there first, the doorman won’t let them in,” said Enjolras, rising from the armchair with a light blush on his cheeks.

⸺⸺⸺

Grantaire had never really understood what exactly Enjolras’ father job was and was vaguely aware he travelled a lot, which meant he was totally unprepared for the apartment the man kept for his Montréal visits. It was at the heart of one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the city, and from what everyone had been saying, there was enough floorspace in the living room and dining room to spread all three of the air mattresses they had brought in Enjolras’ car, not to mention the king-size boxspring they had dragged out of the master bedroom. 

There was still a good half an hour before the fireworks began, and everyone buckled down to help with setting up the space for the night.

“Have you seen the bedsheets with the yellow dots, Chetta?”

“In the Costco bag, with the wool plaid.”

“Ayoye, tabarnak! You dropped the mattress on my foot!”

“Not like it was on _purpose!_ ”

“I can’t find your pillow, Bossuet.”

“Marde. I think I left it in the car.”

“I’ll go. Does anyone else need something from out there? I’m not going back again.”

“Go to the corner store and get a second huge-ass bag of popcorn.”

“There’s already one on the sofa.”

“Namour, it’s not gonna be enough for everyone.”

“Fine. Another bag of popcorn.”

“And ice-cream sandwiches!”

“No.”

“Jo, wait! Does your father still have some wine like last time?”

“I don’t know, find it yourself.”

“Ooh, wine! What kind of wine?”

“The kind you won’t find at the SAQ.”

“We should start the air conditioning right now. Last year was a nightmare.”

⸺⸺⸺

They moved to the roof terrace of the apartment building to watch the fireworks, huddling together for warmth. The fireworks were magnificent, blue and white sparks mesmerizing everyone, eliciting _oohhs_ and _aahhs_.

The lights of the nearby buildings and the streetlights below softly illuminated the terrace. The group had dispersed into smaller groups. Joly, Musichetta, Cosette and Marius looked like they were playing a game known only to Chetta, if her giggles were any indication. Enjolras and Grantaire sat together in a patio chair, talking quietly.

“You don’t have to help us move next week,” said Grantaire, brushing his fingers down his boyfriend’s arm.

“It’s not like there’s anything else for me to be doing on Canada Day, apart from helping you move,” Enjolras pointed out.

“True. But you know, we’ll be fine, it’s not that far—”

“Minou, Baz said he would borrow his friend’s friend’s truck to help you. How are the girls holding up?”

“They aren’t. Louison is always showing me her pinned posts on Pinterest and asking me about colour schemes. Floréal is slowly going crazy too, and she tries her best to not let Lou buy anything horrific like those _Live, Laugh, Love_ prints.”

Bahorel, Bossuet, and Feuilly were leaning against the railing and were talking with Jehan, who was lounging on the floor, eyes fixed on the starless sky, making up stories about imaginary constellations, placidly passing around a joint.

“R!” Jehan exclaimed suddenly, getting up and stumbling to the patio chair where Grantaire was sitting on Enjolras’ lap.

“Mh?” said Grantaire, sipping his second beer of the night.

“You brought your guitar along, right? You wanna play a bit?”

“And you’ll play the ukulele?”

“Duh.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The group was drawn back together by the first notes. Courfeyrac, a little past casually tipsy and already an uncommonly passionate person to begin with, was singing louder than anyone else, even when he didn’t really know the lyrics. Grantaire and Jehan played a bit of everything they knew.

“Ugh, I don’t know what to play anymore,” groaned Grantaire, stretching his back.

“I know, I know!” said Feuilly. “ _Le But!_ ”

“Hell yeah, baby!” 

“Oh my god, would it kill you to _not_ talk about hockey for like a day?”

“Probably,” replied Bahorel, putting his hand on Grantaire’s shoulder in what he thought was a reassuring manner, but which almost made Grantaire drop his guitar.

“Well, I know the rhythm, but not the chords,” said Jehan.

“Graantaiiiire!”

“Ya’ll are very lucky: I happen to know the chords.”

“ _Yessir!_ ” Feuilly cried out, his huge grin showing off his dimples.

A cacophony of joyful cries erupted and Grantaire couldn’t help but smile. Even if he wasn’t a hockey fan himself, he could at least recognise its superiority over, say, soccer. He moved from Enjolras’ lap to settle beside Jehan, giving them room to be able to drum against the soundboard of his guitar.

“Sunshine, I wanna hear you sing too,” Grantaire implored, laughing at his boyfriend’s apprehensive face.

“I don’t know the lyrics.”

“Liar!” exclaimed Joly.

“I sing like a hinge that needs oiling,” tried Enjolras.

“That’s never stopped _me_ ,” said Bahorel.

“Yeah, we know,” said Musichetta with a grin.

And then everyone started singing—save for Grantaire, who was focusing on getting the chords right; it had been quite a while since he had last played this song.

" _En des temps si lointains qu’les francos s’appelaient Canadiens._ ” (Back in times so old that French-speakers were called Canadians.)

Grantaire took his eyes off the guitar briefly and looked at his friends, overflowing with affection.

“ _On a réuni des hommes dont le destin commun est comme un film sans fin en Technicolor, et tricolore—”_ (We put together men with destinies like a tricolor Technicolor movie—)

He couldn’t help but join in, smiling when his eyes met Enjolras’.

“ _Bleu, comme le Saint-Laurent ! Blanc comme l’hiver ! Rouge comme le sang qui nous coule à travers!”_ (Blue for the St-Lawrence! White for winter! Red for the blood that flows through us!)

A now-drunk Courfeyrac was hanging on Combeferre, singing into Combeferre’s neck. Musichetta and Bossuet were intertwined and Joly laughed every time Bossuet stumbled on a word.

“ _Du sang neuf depuis 1909 avec—_ ” (New blood since 1909 with _—_ )

“Marde, I can’t even rap,” mumbled Courfeyrac sadly.

He was speaking for everybody. Or almost everybody: Cosette picked up where everyone had stopped, rapping like a queen over the surprised noises and the shouted encouragement from Bahorel and Courfeyrac, and soon from everyone else as well.

⸺⸺⸺

They had put aside the ukulele and the guitar at last, and Grantaire was in the process of discovering, much to his chagrin, that Combeferre had a penchant for trapping his conversation partner in a hailstorm of random facts when he had had a whole bottle of wine to himself. 

“Did you know that the first St-Jean-Baptiste that approx—ap _prox_ imated the modern holiday was celebrated in 1827 by a bunch of Lower-Canada bourgeois?” Combeferre was saying, not giving a moment for Grantaire to talk (or to escape). “After the 1837-38 uprisings, the British thought it was too close to treason for comfort and it went back to being only a religious holiday. Since the Révolution Tranquile, it’s lost its religious connotations, and I’m so glad that the people reclaimed it to express their pride in their Québécois identity—”

“Bae!” exclaimed Courfeyrac, his eyes suspiciously reddened, letting himself fall dramatically on his boyfriend’s lap. Grantaire was glad for the interruption, really. “I love you _so much_ , bae.”

“Someone’s high, mh?”

“Ferre!” said Enjolras as though speaking through a mouthful of mashed potato, appearing out of nowhere and sitting very close to Grantaire. “We were ranting about how shit a Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau was, back in the day.”

Oh. Enjolras had had too much. When he had too much, he tended to babble about things that made him sad and that he felt like he couldn’t change.

“The Night of the Long Knives, Ferre!” moaned Courfeyrac. “Treason! Disgrace!”

“Lévesque never stood a chance. How could he have known? How? My poor Lévesque. I love him so much, Ferre. _So much._ He really wanted true independance for this nation, and he deserved so—so much better, Ferre.” slurred Enjolras, tugging Grantaire onto his lap and nosing at his boyfriend’s neck. “How could Trudeau Sr. betray his own people like that?”

“I know, Jo, I know.”

“And Québec never signed the new constitution, so why are we still following Canada? When will the people rise, Ferre? I want independence, even if I know we’d be throwing ourselves into a bottomless financial pit, but at least—at least, we’d take them with us.”

“Okaaaay,” said Grantaire, rising. “I think we’re done for the night.”

He cast a look around and saw a sleeping Marius squished against Cosette’s shoulder. Cosette herself was throwing the leftovers of the second popcorn bag at Jehan’s half-open mouth, but Jehan was so high they couldn’t course-correct, leading to fits of borderline-hysterical laughter every time they missed a piece. Bahorel and Feuilly were leaning on each other, sharing the last bottle of beer (and there had been many, many bottles); Musichetta and Bossuet were finishing the Sour Puss together with grimaces. Joly was looking at the lights of the city, lost in his thoughts.

“Hm, he’s right,” muttered Combeferre. “Get up, Courf.”

“Noooo.”

“Aweille, get up. And you too, Jo.”

“Minouuu!”

Grantaire ignored his drunk boyfriend and went to see if his friends were still able to go down the few stairs to the elevator without injuring themselves. Most of them made their way back to the apartment just fine, laughing loudly and ignoring Combeferre, who was trying to shush them on the grounds that some residents had work in the morning.

Bossuet went last, accompanied by Grantaire and Joly, who were the most sober. Joly made sure that everyone was settled for the night.

“Jolllly,” moaned Bossuet, sprawled with Musichetta on the king-sized mattress, deep under the covers. “Come to bed.”

“I’m thinking about tomorrow, you’ll thank me in the morning. You _all_ are gonna thank me in the morning.”

“Hurry, Joly,” muttered Courfeyrac from his place by the lightswitch. “I wanna go cuddle with my man.”

“Namour, you’re monopolizing all the covers,” Grantaire complained. “You gotta share or I’ll freeze to death.”

“Have you tried not freezing?”

“You’re making Karl spin in his grave,” said Grantaire.

“Oh my god, shut up, all of you.”

“For once, I agree with Feuilly.”

“But if you don’t want to die the morning after, have you _truly_ celebrated?” said Combeferre, turning philosophical.

“I’m done!” said Joly.

A chorus of relieved groans echoed in the apartment as Joly slipped under the covers and Courfeyrac turned off the lights. The rustling of fabric and Enjolras’ breath lulled Grantaire to sleep. 

Tomorrow, everyone would wake up with the worst hangover since the last St-Jean-Baptiste, deeply regretting the drinks and the weed, but the cycle would repeat itself until old age prevented it. Such was the way of things.

**Author's Note:**

> Crevette = means "shrimp", but it doesn't have bad connotations in french.
> 
> DEP (Diplôme d'Études Professionnelles) = professional studies diploma. one of the post-high school education diplomas, with the DEC (cégep = college), BAC, Master, and Doctorate (uni).
> 
> SAQ (Société des Alcools du Québec) = only liquor store in Québec, state-owned.
> 
> St-Jean-Baptiste = June 24 
> 
> Canada Day = July 1st


End file.
